Nicole wouldn’t be tricked a third time. The only food she ate was takeout, she drank water from a reusable bottle she filled at work, and she locked her bedroom door. Vanessa wouldn’t have another shot at ‘pranking’ her, even if it meant painstaking vigilance until Nicole could find a new roommate and move out.

And, in the morning, she felt a surge of triumph when it paid off. Upon waking, she reached down immediately, half paranoid, and felt dry blankets, dry sheets. No wet bed for her, she’d–

Squish.

Sitting up, she felt the dampness around her crotch, something warm and wet squelching over her privates, between her thighs. She yanked back the covers in alarm, shocked.

She still had her pajama bottoms on, but beneath them, the waistband poking out clearly, was something she decidedly hadn’t dressed herself in when she went to bed. She pulled her bottoms down to be sure, and revealed, unmistakably, a diaper.

Worse, she’d soaked it through, leaving only a fuzzy blue line down the middle, distorted by pale yellow pee.

She stumbled out of bed, the weight of her abused diaper making it sag heavily against her thighs, almost putting her off balance.

“H-how?” she blurted. It made no sense–Vanessa simply could not have done this. Even if she’d somehow picked Nicole’s lock and snuck inside, Nicole could not fathom a world in which she had her clothes removed, replaced with a diaper, and was redressed without waking up for even a moment.

Waddling to leave her room, she almost tripped over the open package of diapers on her floor, kicking the plastic package and sending more of the garments across the room. Diapers scattered over her rug, eleven of them, all pillow thick and puffy, plain white save for a set of yellow wetness indicator stripes.

Fumbling, she unlocked her door, threw it open, and yelped, “V!”

Vanessa didn’t reply immediately. Nicole had to cross the hall and knock on her door, needing some kind of answer.

“Vanessa!” she pleaded, pounding her fist repeatedly against the flimsy wood. “Come on, I need to talk to you!”

The door flew open. Vanessa, in her own PJs, looked acutely cranky. “What? What did I ‘do to you’ now, Nicole? Do you have something else you want to blame me–is that a diaper?”

“I didn’t put it on when I went to bed,” Nicole said, desperate for something to make sense.

“Well I sure as shit didn’t,” Vanessa said. “So if you even think about blaming me–”

“I don’t blame you,” Nicole said quickly. “I’m sorry, I–this doesn’t make sense. I think I’m losing my mind, and…V? What are you looking at?”

Vanessa stared past Nicole, confusion plastered on her face. “Nic…why did you put that back up?”

Nicole spun. Her potty training chart was back on the door, with rain clouds at night, half-clouds at day, and a loose sketch of herself in a puffy, safety-pinned diaper, like something out of an old Loony Tune.

“I didn’t,” Nicole said. “I threw it away in a dumpster by work.”

“Well I didn’t put it back,” Vanessa said. “I don’t even know how I could have.”

They looked at each other, utterly perplexed.

“Do you think…this could be like…a ghost?” Nicole asked. “A haunting or something?”

“Ghosts aren’t real,” Vanessa said, though she only sounded half-convinced by her own argument. “Maybe this is some fucked up trick by the old tennant or the landlord or something. I…I don’t know.”

Nicole took down the chart, staring at it with a mix of uncertainty and terror. “I…yesterday, I started dribbling and almost had accidents at work. I thought it was because you’d drugged me or something, I was so mad, but…”

“We’ll figure something out,” Vanessa replied. “Here. Give me the chart.”

Nicole passed it over, and Vanessa broke it in half, snapping the plastic board into two pieces in her hands. She then broke those into quarters, and eighths. “There, it’s broken. No way someone’s putting that back as is. And…let’s set up a camera in your room so nobody can sneak in, okay?”

Nicole nodded, wiping her nose. She’d started sniffling. “Okay.”

Fully in problem-solving mode now, Vanessa continued rattling off ideas. “If this doesn’t work, I’ll…one of my exes was pretty spooky, she might be able to do some sort of exorcism or whatever.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t ghosts?” Nicole asked.

“Well I don’t know!” Vanessa threw up her hands. “I’m covering all my bases here. And…I know you use tampons, but I’ve got some pads you can have. For any leaking today.”

“Ugh,” Nicole said, shaking her head. “I hate pads, they just feel like I’m wearing a diaper.”

Vanessa looked down at the sagging, sodden garment drooping between Nicole’s legs. “Really? Because that seems a little more intrusive to me.”

Nicole blushed, and they made eye contact, before bursting out into shared giggles.

“I’ll use the pads,” Nicole said. “And…thanks, V. I really appreciate it.”

She didn’t need to add the, ‘I’m sorry I blamed you.’ It came implied. Vanessa just smiled in response. “Of course, Nicky. That’s what friends are for. I’m sure you’ll figure this out and we can get everything back to normal, okay?”

Nicole didn’t know if she believed her, if she believed that ‘normal’ could be achieved when everything made so little sense. Her friend’s confidence made her want to believe, though, and she smiled, sniffled a little more, and nodded.

“Okay.”